


he carries the reminders (of every glove that laid him down)

by SophiaCatherine



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: (between Mick and strangers), Canon divergent - no Oculus, Fist Fights, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Injuries, Post-Legends, Self-Destructive Tendencies, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 11:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19150450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaCatherine/pseuds/SophiaCatherine
Summary: He’d rather Snart was pissed off. It’d be easier to handle than kindness.





	he carries the reminders (of every glove that laid him down)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hiver_Frost_Elf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiver_Frost_Elf/gifts).



> Happy belated birthday, Hale! You prompted this AGES ago but it didn’t quite click until recently.
> 
> And thank you to Aurelia for the beta read :)

Len’s going to kill him.

Actual murder.

He knows Mick too fucking well. He’s going to take one look at the state he’s in, his cut lip and his two black eyes and what might be a dislocated shoulder, and he’ll know that Mick went out _looking_ for a bar brawl. And then—the murder thing.

The guy didn’t even give him a decent fight. Mick dragged the drunk sleazeball out into the alley behind Saints and Sinners when he started throwing himself at his third unwilling woman of the night, laying it on thick and not taking no for an answer. Bar staff and patrons all looking the other way, like always. But the skeevy little fucker wouldn’t give Mick the satisfaction—just tried to slither away like the snake he was. When the guy finally managed a half-hearted punch, it was laughable. “My old man used to hit harder than that,” Mick cracked, and even then he didn’t take the hint. So Mick just decked him till he fought back.

It got better when the guy’s buddies finally showed up. Taking all three of them down was just the kind of fun he’d been looking for. Especially the big one. “You fuckers took your time.” Mick kicked the scumbag where he was curled up on the ground. “Thought this guy didn’t have any friends to help him out. He sure ain’t worth ‘em.”

Big Guy shrugged, smiling like he’d had to rescue this asshole before. “Left him to suffer alone long enough. Even the shittiest friends deserve better than that.”

Old shadows of Chronos flickered and flared. The laugh Mick had been choking on died in his throat.

He threw another punch.

And another, and... Till he was the last one conscious.

And now he’s stumbling through the slums of Central, trying to figure out if he’s better off disappearing for a night—maybe two—than going home and facing Snart. Who’s never made any secret of how much he hates Mick’s too-frequent habit of drunken brawling.

Sure, the guy’s a hypocrite. Snart might pretend not to, but he loves a good bar fight with Mick at his side. Or he did, once. God, Mick misses those days, when he would glance over at his partner and his eyes were gleaming, as chairs and glasses and people went flying around them. Mick never saw him more alive than that.

But that was before…

Mick kicks a low wall as he passes a run-down apartment building.

These days, a good fight happens when the boss says it does, or not at all.

Under his boot, a brick crumbles away from the wall. Something hot flares inside him, and he nearly lashes out again. Wants to kick the whole fucking thing down, just to see the ruined pile of rubble at his feet.

His foot shakes above the battered little wall. He backs away from all that destruction.

Oh, who’s he kidding? Even before—everything, Len never liked it when Mick got like this.

He can feel it all a little more with every step he takes towards home. He was on an analgesic high when he staggered out of that alley, but now there’s the throbbing shoulder, still wrenched out of its socket. Sharp pain in his hip as he half-drags his leg behind him. Salt and copper in his mouth.

His old bones can’t take this shit anymore.

He pauses outside the anonymous building, picked by the boss for its identical third floor apartment to all the others in the street. He stares up at chipboard-covered windows, black paint peeling off in flakes around them. This row of townhouses was probably in decent shape, once, before it got old and tired. Before it had been through too much to come back from any of it.

The light bulb is out in the hallway again. The ghostly glow of his phone shows 3.20am. Mick’s just wondering if he might get away with it, when—

His partner is leaning in the open door frame, the first promise of disappointment in his eyes.

Mick struggles up the last half flight of stairs to the apartment, his gaze locked with Len’s the whole way. He’s pretty sure the ache in his gut has nothing to do with the six beers he drank tonight.

Len’s world-weary sigh is quietly familiar. When Mick hesitates a few steps from the door, he asks, “You coming in?”

Mick glances away, his eye caught by a shadow moving in the corner. A rat, maybe.

“C’mon, buddy,” Len says, quieter.

Frowning at the loose floorboards around the door, Mick almost doesn’t feel the gentle hand fall on his back as he limps into the apartment. When he does, he freezes. Stumbles against the wall.

“Woah,” Len says, all but catching him as he nearly goes down. “I got you.”

As Len eases his good arm across his shoulders, Mick makes the mistake of looking up at him. Len’s eyes are deep pools swirling with sadness and worry.

Mick’s the one who made him look like that.

He’s quiet as Len leads him to the bathroom, coaxing him down, unresisting, onto the side of the bathtub.

He did this.

He’s quiet as Len dips a cotton ball in iodine, dabbing it lightly on Mick’s split lip.

His fault.

He doesn’t make a sound, other than the silence-shattering crunch, as Len soothes, “Be as quick as I can, buddy,” and pulls Mick’s shoulder back into its socket.

His fucking fault. _Again._

He’s still staring at gray floor tiles when Len cups his chin and turns his face to get a better look at the bruising, shaking his head at him. Mick squirms away a little from those eyes, sharp as icicles. “Why do you do this, eh?” Len asks, in the gentlest voice Mick has heard out of him in ages.

Mick’s twitchy fingers almost reach out for a drink that isn’t there.

Dipping another cotton ball in antiseptic, Len murmurs, half to himself, “It’s like you’re looking to get hurt.”

Mick shrugs to cover the flinch.

“Like you think you deserve to.” Len’s focus is back on the cotton ball.

Chronos rumbles in the distance again.

There’s a hand on Mick’s shoulder, and he snaps “Don’t,” a clipped whisper.

“Okay.” Len looks away, goes back to dabbing gently at Mick’s lip. There’s more silence, the air sprung tight with tension, mostly Mick’s. “Where else d’you get hurt?”

He almost doesn’t answer, but his hip gives a twinge, and he gestures reflexively at it. “Doesn’t matter.”

Len dips his head with a signature look, eyebrows raised. He peels Mick’s jeans down around the joint, hands too soft, too tolerant. The skin is purple from waist to mid-thigh. Len whistles, a flicker of cold rage crossing his face. Mick doesn’t _think_ that’s aimed at him, but... “The fuck they do to you?”

Mick shrugs again. He wants to ask who this bleeding heart is and what he’s done with Mick’s partner, but the wisecracking probably won’t go down well. He doesn’t know why Len isn’t railing at him. Yelling at him that he’s a fuck-up. That he ruins everything. That it’s all his fault.

It’s always been his fault.

Meanwhile, Len has turned away, rustling for something else in their well-stocked first aid kit. When he holds it up, Mick shakes his head. “I’ll be fine.”

A narrow-eyed head tilt. “It’s just arnica. Ain’t gonna—”

“I’ll be _fine,”_ he repeats, teeth clamping down. His aching jaw flares.

Len breathes in and out through his nose. He carefully returns the bottle into the box. “Okay.”

Eyes on the bathroom ceiling, on the damp patches creeping in from the corner, Mick sighs. “You’re the only one allowed to keep your bruises, huh?”

When he glances back down, he’s expecting a pissed-off Snart, but there’s nothing but a weird, mournful look in his partner’s eyes. “Okay,” Len says again. Quietly putting the box away, he drifts out of the room.

Mick just sits there, on the side of the tub, for a while.

Half an hour later, he finds Len in the kitchen. Mick steps in behind him and lays his head on his partner’s shoulder. There’s a pan full of bubbling cocoa on the stove, a spoon abandoned on the counter.

“Hey,” Len says. He doesn’t look around.

“That’ll burn if you don’t stir it.”

“Your wisdom is unrivalled.” Picking up the spoon, Len lets his free hand stray behind him, tangling long fingers into Mick’s. He stirs with the other hand, still not looking at Mick. After a quiet moment, he says, “Sorry.”

Mick frowns at the uncanny _wrong_ feeling rattling through him again. “For what? Pretty sure I’m the one who fucked up.”

He can feel the shake of Len’s head against his neck. “For making you think you did. That I’d be mad.”

“Aren’t you?”

The silence hurts.

Eventually, Len nods at the saucepan. “But I get it.”

Mick isn’t sure whether to doubt that. He turns away—and Len pulls him back into position behind him. Mick lets him. Len’s doing that heavy, quiet thing. Usually means he’s got something important to say.

The stove turns off with a click, echoing in the silence. Len’s hand hovers near the pan. “Remember when I walked into that cell on the Waverider?” Mick can hear him swallow. “All but asked you to kill me.”

Mick just listens.

“You know I don’t know what I wanted. Just knew I didn’t want to feel like the world’s biggest fuck-up anymore. Like the world’s worst partner.”

“You weren’t ever that,” Mick murmurs in his ear.

He feels him sigh against him. It sets loose something old and buried, deep in Mick’s chest. Len turns around, holding Mick at arm’s length so he can look him in the eye. “You didn’t fuck up. I get needing it all to... stop.”

The burning in his throat is too much and he turns away, sagging into a wobbly chair. His old bones complain where they scrape harsh edges. “C’mon, Lenny,” he mutters, “don’t do that.”

Len gets a sly half-smile as he sets a mug of cocoa down in front of him. “Sure. Less feeling, more drinking, right?” 

Mick squints at his mug. “You saying I can make this Irish?” There’s no mini-marshmallows. He knows just how Mick likes it.

The other chair squeaks against cheap laminate flooring, and course Len’s own mug is piled high with pink fluffy crap. “If you like.” He sounds fond, just a little indulgent. Getting up and reaching down the bottle from the shelf, he walks around to stand behind Mick, spilling a generous measure of whiskey into his mug.

“Ah,” Mick sighs approvingly.

In the late, lengthening silence, all that noise starts up again. The pressure in his chest; the vicious drive to lay waste to something. The ache in his fucked-up old bones that can’t even take a beating anymore. And, really—what else is he _for?_

Then there are arms wrapping around him from behind and the lightest of kisses against his neck. “I got you,” Len whispers into his ear.

And, God, Mick doesn’t fucking deserve him. But he thinks Len would say otherwise.

The most Mick can manage is a gruff, “Yeah. You always do.” He wraps his arms around Len’s where they’re tightening around his middle, and closes his eyes.

And stops fighting.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: SophiaInSpace.


End file.
